Gentle giant Joleon Lescott is Hull’s loss and Albion’s gain according to Baggies boss Alan Irvine who stands to name the former Wolves ace as his skipper at the KC Stadium.

Steve Bruce was close to landing the 32-year-old in June before he signed a two year contract at The Hawthorns with an option for a further year.

“I’m absolutely delighted he’s with us instead of them (Hull), abolutely.” said the Albion boss.

“He’s been terrific,” he said.

“Joleon isn’t a person who does a lot of shouting. He’s quite calm in the way that he goes about things but obviously he has got the respect of all the players.

“He is somebody who has played at the very top level but he has also experienced this kind of situation as well, so that experience will definitely help.

“He is a very good player, we knew that right from the beginning when we were going to bring him in and his performances have been of a level that I kind of expected them to be because of the type of player he is and because of the type of person he is.

“He is great to have around.”

Lescott’s leadership qualities are coming to the fore, says Irvine, whose side badly need a result in Humberside after four straight defeats.

“You need strong characters, you need leaders,” said Irvine. “There’s absolutely no question of that because unfortunately, once the whistle blows, then it’s very difficult for you to affect things that are going on on the pitch.

“You can stand there shouting as loud as you possibly want and try to get messages onto people but it is very difficult once the game has started.

“It is very difficult for you to pass messages on through other people. The Chinese whispers means that by the time it reaches the other stage of the pitch is is usually something completely different. So that’s a tricky one as well.

“So you need people who are strong characters, your leaders. You need the ones who have a good understanding of what is needed at that particular stage in a game in order to try to get things right.

“We started the game against West Ham extremely well, we were very positive, we got a goal and looked like we might go and build on that and then a bit of nervousness, a bit of anxiety crept in on the back of a couple of mistakes.

“Before you knew it we were in a situation where either we needed people on the pitch who could just get everyone together again, or we needed half-time to come without any damage. Unfortunately, by the time half-time came we’d gone behind.